NEWSLETTER

The first was when I was chatting with a group of friends on the street in front of my house. Suddenly, out of the blue, a strange-looking man rushed out of a house 20 meters away from us. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. He was blindfolded, his mouth was duct-taped, and his hands were tied behind his back. There was blood all over him. The man blindly crossed the street and stopped outside a store. “Untie me! Open my eyes, please! Help!” he was screaming. A few people ran out to help him. He kept saying, “Please take me to my house, they will kill me,” over and over again. Someone put him in a taxi and they drove away.

At first we concluded that he was kidnapped and being held in that house, but then we heard his story from the family that lived there. They said that they were sitting in their backyard, waiting for sunset—it was Ramadan and they were fasting—and suddenly what seemed like a corpse was thrown into their yard over the back fence of the house. They thought he was dead at first, but the body just stood up and moved. There were girls sitting in the yard as well, so they began to scream when the man started running around, because it was such a strange scene. I mean, I freaked out when I saw him too. “Please, don’t scream. I’m kidnapped. They will hear you,” he begged them. The girls kept screaming, so he ran out to the street, where we saw him coming out.

I can’t deny that I was terrified. I stood like a statue until the whole scene ended. I wanted to cry after that. We can’t even know if our neighbors are friends or enemies.

Another incident was five weeks after my return, and it was even more disturbing. The life of an innocent young hairdresser ended horribly and I saw it happen.

She was about to go home. After she closed up her shop, around 5:30 PM, she stopped a taxi. Just as she was about to get in, another car with four young men inside screeched to a halt, blocking the way of the taxi. One gunman—he couldn’t have been over 18—leapt out of the car and dragged the bewildered woman out of the taxi. He put a black plastic bag on her head as she kicked and screamed, and then he shot her. He got back in and their car screeched away as bystanders stared in disbelief. The hairdresser’s corpse remained lying in the middle of the street for about four hours. An American patrol arrived later and picked up the body. They had to shoot the body several times before going near because they were afraid it was booby-trapped.

I took a photo of the body from a distance as she lay there because I had to document the terrible things happening in this unfortunate country.

NABIL KASIM
Nabil is a 20-year-old student in Baghdad and is the author of nabilsblog.blogspot.com


TO BE CONTINUED:
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